


Fate, Farces and Fiascos

by overunderachiever



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [7]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Almost Dying, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is a Himbo, Curses, Gen, Long-Term Illness Mention, Multi, Quests, Very Mild Fantasy Violence, anyway, but no one dies or sustains any lasting injury, im so sorry, injury mention, not extreme enough to tag as graphic, one vague reference to animal death, this is honestly a mess, why is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overunderachiever/pseuds/overunderachiever
Summary: Roman wakes up one day and realises something is very wrong with one of his soulmates. He sets off on a mission to help them but it turns into quite the fiasco.Or:Roman doesn't take anything seriously, Patton has a bad idea, Virgil did not sign up for this, Remus definitely did sign up for this, Janus is permanently exasperated, and Logan needs to admit when he's ill.
Relationships: Platonic DLAMPR, Virgil & Roman & Remus & Janus & Logan & Patton, for some reason I cant find the official tag
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872199
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68





	Fate, Farces and Fiascos

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest this story doesn't really focus on the relationship or the dynamics at all and is just "how Roman used the handy fate strings to rope progressively more people into the mess he made". So if it's feelings you want, this isn't the place to find them.
> 
> If its a slightly farcical quest you want then this is the place.

Roman sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, heart racing. He suddenly knew what that odd feeling he'd had for the last few months meant.

One of his soulmates was sick.

He stared at the strings tied around the fingers of his left hand, trying to work out which one the alarm was coming from, but it was too vague. All he could work out was that something was very wrong with one of them and, judging by the way this feeling of dread had been growing for months, they didn't have a way to fix it.

He couldn't let the person die, not when he was sure he could do something about it. Adrenaline already burning through his veins, Roman made a snap decision:

Time for a quest.

The hunter wasted no time. He hurried around his tiny cottage gathering everything he would need for the journey, remembering to grab his red cloak at the last minute. It wasn't a very practical garment, nor was it necessary for warmth at this time of year, but Roman looked fabulous in it and he wanted to make a good impression on any of his soulmates he might meet.

In a matter of minutes Roman was ready and out the door, following his fate stings through the forest. They all led roughly North-West along the forest path, though he didn't know how long they stayed together as he'd never followed them far enough to find out. Now, he planned to follow them as far as possible before they split and then choose the direction of the closest soulmate.

It was several days of walking before the light blue string on his thumb began to hum in a manner that Roman assumed meant he was close to the one of his soulmates. A few hours after that, the string start to turn a little more northerly than the rest. He followed it for another whole day, growing increasingly jittery with the anticipation, and nervous at the way the other strings were beginning to point in very different directions.

Some time in the afternoon, Roman realised the string was actually starting to rise off the ground, and he seriously hoped he wouldn't have to do any climbing. Then suddenly, there through the trees, with the pale blue string rising right to the very top and turning red, was a stone tower.

Roman hurried over, noticing a man leaning out the window, waving at him enthusiastically, the string attached to both men's thumbs humming and bouncing around with their proximity. His soulmate must have been able to tell Roman was coming for a while.

When he reached the bottom of the tower, which wasn't very tall but certainly far too high to jump from and too much effort to climb, he called up to the man. "Greetings, soulmate! I'm Roman. What's your name?"

"Hello Roman, I love your cape! I'm Patton! Oh gosh I'm so glad to finally meet you!"

"As am I," Roman quickly explained why he had come on his quest, asking if Patton was ok.

"Well I'm not sick but I accidentally got hit with a power-reversal curse a few months ago which turned my healing magic into harming. I used to be the best doctor in the whole town, but then one of my spells went wrong and the town trapped me in this tower, keeping me here because they like my baking too much to get rid of me. They send food in to me every few days but there is no way in or out.

"Do you think that's what you picked up on? I also got a feeling that something was wrong thought, so maybe something happened to one of our other soulmates too?

Roman was shocked as Patton spoke. It was cruel of the townspeople to trap him here for something he couldn't control, especially since this man seemed so friendly and sweet. But his suggestion was probably right and there was only one thing for it.

"I believe you are correct! Do you know how I can lift this curse?"

"Just a sec!" Patton disappeared into the room at the top of the tower for a few minutes then reappeared with a large basket. "Take these pastries. Theres a dragon witch with a sweet tooth who lives in the woods a little way to the south. They should be enough payment to get her to give you something to break the curse." He dropped the basket which Roman caught, noticing it was piled high with sweets and baked goods. "You'll have to be careful though, I don't know how evil she might be."

"Is there no way I can free you from the tower?"

"Maybe, but if you try now we wont be able to get very far before someone realises I'm gone. It'd be better to wait until after they leave tomorrow, so we'll have more of a head start."

"All right Patton. Fear not! I shall soon return with a way to cure you and free you from this prison. Then we can continue my quest to make sure all our other soulmates are ok. Farewell friend, see you soon."

With that, and Patton's well wishes ringing in Roman's ears he set off once again to find a dragon witch.

\-----

The hunter-turned-adventurer travelled for another day before his next soulmate string began to hum. It was only then that he realised he'd been following his purple fate string for quite a while. He hoped that meant the dragon witch was one of his soulmates, it would make persuading them to help Patton a lot easier.

Dusk was falling, making the forest look much creepier than it should have been, when the string began to bounce wildly and something leapt out from behind a tree with a snarl. Roman stumbled back, almost dropping the basket in his haste to draw his hunting knife, at the sight of the...wolf...man...thing. The wolf-man-thing with five soulmate strings tied around its...paw?

They stared at each other for several seconds, both noticing the string that faded from purple to red, tying Roman's pointer finger to what would have been the other's thumb had they been human.

Roman recovered from the surprise first. "Hello there! It seems we must be soulmates! My name's Roman and I am on a quest to free my soulmates of their woes."

The creature just stared at him before making a grumbling noise and gesturing vaguely at his mouth.

It took Roman an embarrassingly long time to work out what he was trying to communicate. "Oh you can understand me but not talk?" The creature nodded. "If it's not too personal, how did you get like this? Only humans have soulmates."

The creative gave him a look that was definitely exasperated, rolled its eyes and waved its hand as its throat again.

"Oh of course sorry! Well, have you always been like this?"

The creature shook its head, no.

"Oh were you cursed then?"

A nod.

"Ah! Well I'm already on my way to save one of our soulmates from their own curse, so I can help you at the same time. Apparently I need a dragon witch, do you happen to know where to find one?"

The creatures stiffened, then nodded hesitantly. Roman was unsure why.

"Well lead on then! We have a people to save!"

The creature rolled its eyes again and turned right off the path into the forest, gesturing for Roman to follow. They walked in silence for a long time as night drew in, the creature moving almost silently through the trees and often turned to shush Roman whenever he made too much noise. It The hunter was perfectly capable of moving silently but there was no immediate danger so he really see the need to do so. Besides, it was fun to wind up the creature.

The creature flung out an arm (leg?) in front of Roman, stopping him in his tracks. It pointed ahead at a small house through the trees. Roman immediately started to march forward, eager to save his soulmates, but the creature grabbed hold of him.

It looked positively annoyed, gesturing wildly in a manner Roman couldn't decipher. After a minute took a few steadying breaths and calmed down. Then, it gestured to itself, made an exaggerated creeping motion, pretended to look around, pointed at Roman and made a shushing noise. Roman figured the creature was trying to tell him it would go ahead to look around while Roman stayed behind.

Roman did not like this idea but muttered "fine" and the creature slunk over to the house. He couldn't really see much in the darkness and very quickly got bored of waiting. Moving closer, he caught sight of the creature peering through one of the windows of the house and came up alongside to look in too. The creature jumped at his appearance, yelping and flailing a paw out to hit him before it realised who he was.

It was just starting to gesture wildly in a distinctly pissed off fashion when the window they were nearby shot open. The creature pushed Roman out the way just as a flash of light shot out, hitting it squarely in the side, and throwing it through the air into a tree.

Roman cried out and rushed over, abandoning the basket on the ground, terrified one of his soulmates had just been killed because he was so reckless. The creature raised its head glaring at him and made an urgent shooing motion, though didn't seem to be able to move much beyond that.

The hunter didn't want to leave one of his soulmates like that - clearly the dragon witch was hostile and the creature would certainly be captured if Roman ran now. But it didn't seem he had much choice - as very large and very angry shape was storming from the cottage towards them.

Roman gave one last apologetic glance to his soulmate and took off through the trees.

His quest to help his soulmates had gone south very fast. One of his soulmates was cursed to only hurt and destroy things, and another was trapped as a wolf-creature and now Roman had gotten him captured by a very angry and very powerful being.

Roman had to fix this, and fast.

\-----

Only a few hours after Roman left him, a villager came to visit Patton to deliver food. This had given Patton plenty of time to come up with an excuse as to why he did not have the usual basket of baking to give in return. He couldn't very well say he was using it to pay a dragon witch to cure his curse so he could escape.

The explanation that he had accidentally burned it all while trying to fix the oven seemed to satisfy the villager and they left with just a veiled threat of what would happen if he did it again.

Several hours after that, Patton got a very distinct feeling of Danger and knew that whatever he had sent his soulmate into had gone horribly wrong. For the whole night he waited, unable to sleep, pacing his tiny room, not knowing what had happened or how he could help.

Then as dawn was breaking over the trees, one of his soulmate strings began to shake. But it wasn't the red one on his thumb. No, this was the green one on his pointer finger and Patton didn't have to wait long before another of his soulmates emerged from the trees.

This one was somehow far more regally dressed and also far more dishevelled than the first was,. And he was carrying a mace for some reason.

"Hiya Rapunzel! I'm Remus: runaway duke. You ok up there?"

Patton assumed the question was prompted by the sudden panicking feeling the night before and the fact that at least one of the soulmate group had something wrong with them.

"I'm Patton, it's lovely to meet you. It's a long story but basically I have a curse on me that makes me dangerous and so I've been trapped in this tower, one of our other soulmates came along yesterday to check on me and I sent him to someone who can lift the curse, and then I felt a burst of panic so I think it must have gone wrong which makes it my fault...oh goodness what if he's hurt somewhere and I sent him to his death-"

"Whoa slow down there Patty, no need to get your spleen in a twist. Why didn't this soulmate rescue you first?"

Patton took a deep breath to calm himself before replying. "Someone was due to come along to check on me and I didn't want to even try to escape without a head start. Also there's no easy way in or out the tower."

"No way out of the tower? Ha! It just hasn't met me yet!" And with that Remus charged the stone structure and whacked it with his mace.

Patton giggled. "I don't think that'll work, the tower is rock solid."

"How did you get in there in the first place?" Remus asked, hitting the stone again.

"Oh there are some stairs up the inside. I got the trap door for them open a while back but the outside doorway is sealed up."

Remus hit the tower again, frowned for a second, and then jumped like he'd gotten an idea. "Where was the door Patty?"

"Oh just around that side. You can see where the stone archway was quite easily."

Remus scurried around the tower to where the door used to be, just out of Patton's sight. But he didn't need to be able to see to know that Remus was repeatedly whacking the tower wall at what Patton realised must be a weak point in the structure. After several minutes of solid hitting - Patton was very surprised at how much energy Remus must have to keep that up for so long - there was a crunching noise and a shout of triumph followed by the scraping of stone.

Patton suddenly realised he should probably have been gathering his belongings so he could escape, but he hadn't thought Remus would succeed. Thinking about it, there wasn't a lot he wanted to take so he just grabbed his shoes and coat and the one magical healing book he had been able to keep, and rushed down the stairs. For the first time in several years, light was spilling into the stairwell from a small hole in the wall, growing rapidly under Remus' hands.

The hole was large enough in no time and Patton was finally, finally able to step out onto solid ground. He had practically forgotten what grass felt like but there wasn't really time for him to stop and enjoy it.

"Right come on then Patty-Cakes, let's go save this other soulmate!"

\-----

Roman didn't know exactly how long he had been running through the forest, following his yellow soulmate string that had started to bounce not long after he'd left his other soulmate. He felt very guilty about leaving them behind but he just had to hope this next soulmate would be able to help save them. He couldn't help thinking he had gotten in way over his head.

The trees began to thin and the earth got increasingly sandy as Roman stumbled on, having to slow down to a walk after running for so long. He had a lot of stamina, being a hunter, but even he couldn't keep it up for hours at a time.

He stopped very abruptly when he realised where he was headed. Right in front of him was a beach, the sun breaking the horizon somewhere to the right, and his yellow soulmate string leading directly into the water. And it was bouncing like mad.

Roman was beginning to think he couldn't catch a beak. One soulmate trapped in a tower, one cursed into a wolf-man-thing, and one apparently lived under the sea.

He barely had any time to sulk about it, though, for soon the water rippled and...something...half man half fish...pulled itself out of the water to sit on a rock not far out to sea.

Yeah Roman really couldn't catch a break.

The two stared at each other, took in the string that faded from yellow on Roman's middle finger to red on the other's pointer finger, and tried to work out who should speak first.

"Well this isn't unexpected at all. Hello Red Riding Hood."

"Ah. Yes. Sorry. Hello, my name is Roman, cursed soulmate in a tower, another cursed soulmate helping me help them, long story short: do you know how to defeat a dragon witch?"

The other looked surprised for a second before schooling his features into nonchalance again. "No of course not, it's not as though I am a powerful sea witch and can also turn myself human at will."

Roman looked closely at his soulmate, trying to work out what he was talking about. The...merman?...was probably not lying about the "sea" part. He had a very long scaled yellow-green tail in place of legs, the same colour scales up the left side of his face, webbed hands, and gills. But was he being sarcastic or not?

The merman sighed. "Yes I can help you. But you're very lucky you found me, not everyone has a soulmate with enough magic to be in with a chance of defeating a dragon witch. But did you need her alive? Because I can only rescue the one she captured by fighting her and either killing her or sending her off running, which wouldn't be ideal-"

"Well do you know anyone who _can_ lift the curses instead?" Roman asked impatiently.

"Wow. Not rude at all. I was going to say that another one of our soulmates can do that. He lives a few hours' walk in that direction." The merman pointed West, the same direction as the dark blue string on his ring finger.

"Right, excellent. You go off to fight the dragon witch and rescue our soulmate and I will fetch our other soulmate to lift the curses."

The merman sighed, resigning himself to the fact that his plans for a self care day were going out the window in favour of bailing out his hapless soulmates.

"Wow, Roman. Way to rush into things."

That was his only complaint before he allowed his tail to disintegrate gracefully into a pair of legs and a cloud of scales that then swirled together around him to turn into a very golden robe with a belt shaped like a snake. The webbing and gills had disappeared but the scales on his face stayed. Roman was very quickly realising that this merman (or was it just man now?) did not do things by halves. That and he needed better ways of describing things internally.

The man then gracefully slid down the rock into the water and waded over to the shore. He stopped in front of Roman. "Right be off with you, and come back quickly. I don't fancy dying today."

As he turned to go, Roman suddenly remembered something. "Wait, I forgot to ask your name."

"Janus" the man said with a snide smile before striding off into the trees in the direction of the purple string.

Roman turned and quickly hurried in the other direction, determined to rejoin Janus as soon as possible to provide back-up for the fight. He had no idea if the sea-witch was actually capable of what he said, and he didn't really want to take any chances anymore.

\-----

Virgil was feeling a horrible combination of boredom and terror. Bored because he was stuck in a cage with nothing to do, terrified because he was stuck in a cage in a dragon witch's house.

The dragon witch in question had seemed very surprised when her killing spell had, in fact, not killed him. Virgil figured this was something to do with the spell being meant for a human, which he wasn't. His captor did not seem to have realised that. She kept riffling through spell books, muttering, and hadn't so much as looked at him for the past three hours. Not that he minded of course, the longer she was distracted, the more time his idiot soulmate would have to come back with a rescue party. If he was even worth the effort.

One of the things that made his whole ordeal even stranger was the fact that the bars of the cage were definitely made of liquorice and the walls of the house were made of gingerbread, the window he'd been looking through before he got caught had been oddly sticky, and the house had a permanent bakery-smell. He wondered why on earth this powerful being had chosen to live in a cottage made of pastries of all things.

But it did explain why Roman The Crass had been carrying a large basket of baked goods - perhaps he was going to offer to carry out repairs on the house in exchange for curse-breaking.

Virgil was also very frustrated. A cell made of three walls liquorice and one wall gingerbread should have been easy to escape from. Unfortunately, he was chained up with very real metal, and even if he wanted to risk annoying the dragon witch by trying to eat his way out, both gingerbread and liquorice were disgusting so Virgil doubted he'd get very far.

He wondered if the witch had purposely made the cell from two of the most disgusting "sweet treats" imaginable or if it was just lucky coincidence that Virgil hated them.

So all he could really do was brood. He wasn't really in any actual imminent danger, just bored out of his mind and constantly slightly worrying about when he would be in danger.

\-----

Janus walked very quickly through the forest. He wasn't hurrying, Janus never hurried. That would be undignified. He was also certainly not worried about the survival chances of...most of his soulmates. One of them was trapped somewhere, the one he'd just met had approximately zero braincells, and the only other that he'd met was...no he'd be fine. Everyone would be fine.

Totally.

It wasn't until early evening when he realised all three of the last soulmate strings he had were bouncing with varying levels of ferocity. It seemed green and light blue were nearby, but he continued to follow the purple one, watching as all three strings pointed more and more in the same direction.

When he saw the cottage through the trees, he had several minutes to quietly approach it, noting with incredulity that it seemed to be made entirely out of-

"Gingerbread!" And the quiet time was up.

The excitable shriek was accompanied by a man barrelling out of the woodland, heading straight for the cottage and therefor right into Janus, knocking him flat on his back.

"Does the word 'stealth' mean nothing to you?" He growled.

It was only after the man clambered off him with a quick apology and took off again, that Janus notice the string that faded from green on his middle finger to yellow on the other man's pointer finger. How many of his soulmates were so idiotic?

"I'm so sorry about Remus, I should probably have warned him about the dragon witch's house, but then he might have been even more excitable" came another voice.

Janus stood up and dusted himself off before turning to look at the only-slightly-apologetic, altogether-too-cheerful newcomer. He had a yellow string tied to his middle finger that faded to light blue on Janus' ring finger. Another soulmate then, and clearly a ditz.

"You're the soulmate who was trapped aren't you?"

"Yes! I'm Patton, how did you know?"

"Roman came to inform me he'd been trying to help you when another one of our soulmates got captured by a dragon witch. I am here to retrieve said soulmate by any means necessary. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me as to why Roman was trying to approach a dragon witch in the first place?"

Patton looked bashful. "Oh dear, that was my idea. I gave him a basket of baking which I hoped would be enough to get her to un-curse me."

Janus rolled his eyes so hard they almost got stuck, before turning back to the cottage to see Remus trying to eat pieces of the fence.

"Remus!" The man turned to look at him with a slightly manic expression and a face covered in chocolate. "Could you save your consumption-based property damage for when we find where our soulmate is held captive. It would be just delightful if our sweet-toothed adversary were to notch us before we are ready."

Remus pouted but stomped back over to the others. He perked up a bit when he noticed the strings. "Ooh another soulmate!"

"Yes, I'm Janus now could we please focus on the task in hand. I don't want you to exhaust me before I've even started to engage in magical combat with a less than pleased dragon.

"Patton, stay out the way. Full offence, but you don't look like you'll be much help. Remus stay there until I tell you to, then eat all you want."

Janus ignored the pair of indignant noises and set off quickly around the house, peering carefully into the windows. It wasn't until he got to a window at the back of the house that he could see where a sort of half-man-half-beast-thing was sitting in a cage looking simultaneously bored and nervous, eyeing the scaly semi-human who was bustling around the room.

He signalled to Remus and then darted back to the window. There was a crash from the front of the house that had the dragon witch running from the room towards the source of the noise. Janus wasted no time in sending a blast at the gingerbread wall and breaking into the room. The wolf-man in the corner gave a start before looking away in mild embarrassment. Janus broke the liquorice bars with ease, grabbed the creature's arm, destroyed his chains, and then ran the hell out of there. Janus did not like to waste time.

\-----

Remus liked destroying stuff. He also liked eating things. Today had been one of the best he'd had in a long time because it gave him plenty of opportunities to do just that.

On Janus' signal, he'd descend on the house like a lion catching a gazelle, destroying the door with a single whack of his mace and scarfing down as many chocolate shards as he could fit in his mouth.

Next to feel the wrath of Remus' hunger were the boiled sweet decorations around the doorframe before one of the front windows got acquainted with his mace and he started crunching down on pieces of sugar glass. He'd always wondered what it would be like to eat glass and found this alternative absolutely delicious.

At that moment the gingerbread house resident charged out, turning into a dragon the moment she was clear of the doorway. Remus has just enough time to pout about dinner being over before he had to roll to avoid a blast of fire.

Then a lot of things were happening at once.

Janus rounded the corner and immediately started shooting spells in very quick succession at the dragon. Remus ran around getting in as many hits with his mace as he could without sustaining any life threatening burns. The wolf-man darted in from time to time slashing at the dragon as best he could before Janus yelled something about getting out of the way.

For quite some time, all Remus was aware of was a lot of noise, a very pissed off dragon, and then his mace flying out of his hand. A self preservation instinct, that Remus was hitherto unaware existed, had him retreating very quickly to where Patton was standing by the trees, hopping up and down and shouting encouragement.

This cheerleading didn't seem to be very helpful as Janus was getting pushed back further and further by a combination of fire and the dragon's own spells.

Remus wasn't entirely sure what happened next.

Janus was thrown to the side. Someone yelled a warning. A blast of light was headed towards him and Patton. The wolf-man was in front of them, then collapsing to the ground, unmoving. Janus was up again. There was yet another blast, much bigger than before, and the dragon was keeling over onto the floor then unsteadily scrambling up and taking off over the trees.

\-----

Roman was almost dead on his feet by the time he arrived at the alchemist's hut. He knocked weakly and slumped against the doorframe, getting increasingly impatient at the length of time it took the occupier to answer.

"Ah salutations, you must be one of my soulmates. My name is Logan."

"Hello, yes, I'm Roman, you're needed to lift curses from two of our other soulmates."

Something like alarm flickered over Logan's face before he smoothed his features out again. "Alright. This is unexpected but give me a moment to gather the things I will need and then we shall be off." The alchemist disappeared inside his house.

"What do you mean unexpected?" Roman called indignantly. "Can you not feel that sickness feeling through the soul bond? That's how I knew to go save whoever it was that the misfortune had befallen!"

Logan took a moment to answer. "Oh. Of course I felt that. I am merely surprised that you have come all the way to ask me to help. Right, I am ready now." He emerged from the house with a large bag in hand. "Lead on."

With a sigh of exhaustion, Roman turned to start walking again, noticing all his strings were now pointed in the same direction. He assumed it must mean they were all at the dragon witch's house, but that didn't explain how Patton had escaped or how the green one knew what was going on.

He supposed there was only one way to find out.

\-----

The two were approaching Janus' beach when Logan felt a bout of sudden panic and urgency. Glancing over, he could see Roman had noticed it too and with just a look they made the decision: hurry.

The confusing turmoil of emotions was not calming down and Logan pushed to run faster, quickly beginning to leave the hunter behind. When he slowed to let him catch up, he realised just how exhausted Roman looked. The man must have been running around this forrest for days, it was no wonder he was so tired.

"Roman you look like you are about to faint from fatigue. I shall go on ahead and you may follow at your own pace. I will meet you at the dragon witch's house."

Roman looked like he was about to protest but Logan didn't give him time, just turned and took off through the trees. He hoped the dragon witch wasn't far, he didn't know how long he could keep up this pace. He wasn't the most athletic anyway but with the added-

No. He would be fine. He had to do this for his soulmates' sake.

It was far too long before his strings began to bounce and Logan stumbled out the trees into the dragon witch's clearing. In a moment he took in everything he needed to know: the house was made of gingerbread and partly destroyed, there was a half-man-half-wolf creature lying very still on the ground, a man kneeling next to him sobbing something like "I can't help him", another man pacing despite very obviously being in pain, and Janus wringing his hands together and fretting.

Janus never fretted.

"Oh thank god you're here Logan! One of our soulmates is grievously injured and Patton would be able to heal him but he's been cursed so his natural healing powers don't work."

"I assume our soulmate is also cursed into that animal? Right, I shall be right back."

Logan marched into what was once a dragon witch's house, trying to quell the nerves about breaking such powerful curses. It didn't take long to find the ingredients he needed - if it weren't for how much Roman's plan went wrong, the dragon witch would have easily been able to help him. Logan just had to hope he'd be able to do it instead.

He was back out the ex-house in a matter of minutes with supplies, then he sat down next to Patton to carry out the curse-breaker, trying to ignore how exhausted he felt. To everyone else in the clearing, he just looked like he was saying some fancy words over some leaves but to Logan it was a very precise matter. He took hold of Patton's hands, muttered the last words and concentrated, pouring his energy into pulling the curse from the other man.

No-one spoke.

For a second nothing happened and Logan was terrified it wasn't working. Then a pale glow began to surround their hands, quickly spreading to cover them completely, making Logan sigh with relief. The glow was only there for a few seconds before it was suddenly dissipating into the ether and Logan was trying to disguise his laboured breathing.

He felt lightheaded and it the post-magic weakness was taking longer to pass than usual. Again, Logan ignored it.

Patton gave him a thankful look, tinged with doubt as to whether the spell worked, before he turned to the creature still collapsed on the ground. His face held a look of determination mixed with fear as he raised his hand over the body and engulfed it with his own magic light.

The whole clearing was perfectly still.

The creature gasped, sitting bolt upright and throwing its arms around Patton in a hug, muttering some sentiment of thanks into the healer's shoulder.

Logan was still trying to control his breathing. There was another soulmate to fix and it was no good to be dwelling on his own problems now. He set up the curse-breaker again then took the creature's hands, trying not to let his own shake. He was feeling more and more lightheaded, switching from too hot to too cold at an alarming rate.

Someone was probably speaking. Asking if he was ok? Maybe asking what he was doing? It didn't matter.

For all it mattered to Logan, the whole world could have been silent.

He took one last breath and gasped out the incantation, light surrounding him a second time, trying to concentrate, channelling every last scrap of his fading energy into freeing his soulmate.

Then as quickly as he'd started, he was done.

The light faded and in front of him sat a very human man, gazing in wonder at himself, finally free of fur and claws.

And the world went dark.

\-----

Roman trudged into the clearing to see Patton healing a wound on a very dishevelled man's leg, Janus hovering around looking the opposite of composed, and a golden light which faded to reveal Logan and presumably the man who used to be the wolf-creature sitting facing each other on the ground.

Then Logan pitched forward onto the other in a dead faint.

Everyone rushed forwards at once - Janus trying to see if he was breathing, Remus letting out a string of very rude words, Patton trying and failing to help Janus, and Roman just trying to not collapse himself.

He could still feel the sickness feeling through the soul bond but it looked like Logan had managed to lift both curses which could only mean...

"He was the one who was sick!" Roman gasped.

"God, I knew he was ill but I didn't think it was this bad..." Janus muttered, his suave act completely gone.

"You knew? And you let him do this?" The ex-wolf glared daggers at Janus.

"Emphasis on the 'didn't think it was this bad'." Janus bit back.

Patton's urgent voice interrupted the bickering. "Do you know what's wrong with him? I might be able to bring him back."

"I don't know! He just said it was a flu and would clear up soon."

"Well that makes this harder, but not impossible." Patton grabbed a large medical book from where it lay abandoned on the ground. He flicked through it, pausing to read seemingly random sections. "Ok I think I know what to do."

He put the book down. "Could you...oh sorry I never got your name?" He asked the ex-creature.

"Oh it's um Virgil."

"Right Virgil, Remus, I need you to hold him down. He might struggle so I'm sorry if you get kicked but Janus and Roman are both too exhausted to help."

Virgil and Remus, as the ex-creature and dishevelled noble were apparently called, did as they were told, Virgil taking hold of Logan's arms and Remus clamping down on his legs. Patton raised his hands over Logan's unconscious body and concentrated.

Everyone held their breath.

It didn't look particularly impressive, just some light slowly enveloping Logan and Patton frowning a lot and muttering.

Suddenly, Logan gasped and struggled, yelling incoherently, and trying to get away, but Patton wasn't finished. The light changed colour several times, and his arms started to shake, all the while Logan flailed and kicked at the two man holding onto him. His eyes seemed glazed over, unaware of his surroundings at all.

Very suddenly the magic disappeared and Logan was lying still on the ground again. It gave Roman whiplash just to watch.

Patton was panting, and neither Virgil nor Remus looked much better. Nothing happened. Had it even worked?

Then very slowly, Logan began to stir and sat up, blinking at the rest of his soulmates gathered around

"I am terribly sorry, I seem to have passed out for a moment there."

"Yeah no shit." Virgil grumbled.

"Not that we were worried in the slightest," Janus drawled, apparently back to his usual self, "but what was that all about?"

"Yeah you completely keeled over, after fixing Virgil!" Roman added.

Logan sighed. "For the last few months, I have had an unidentifiable disease that I was unable to cure. It suddenly got much worse a few days ago and I believe that is what Roman was picking up on when he set off on this quest. Lifting the curse on Patton drained nearly all my energy and then Virgil's sent me over the edge. I do apologise for any alarm caused."

"Woah-woah-woah! No need to apologise!" Patton exclaimed. "You nearly died on us there! Besides, after you fixed me, it was no problem to heal you."

"Speak for yourself" Virgil muttered.

"Yeah you put up one hell of a fight when Patton was doing his hocus-pocus!" Remus exclaimed, rather too gleeful about the fact. "For a scrawny nerd you sure can kick!"

"Again, not that I was worried, but why didn't you tell anyone? It totally wasn't terrifying to see one of my soulmates apparently drop dead three minutes after they arrived."

"Well I didn't want to worry you...and I thought I would be strong enough to do the magic. Technically, I was right-"

"You nearly died! Do you know how stressful it is for someone to collapse on you!" Virgil yelled.

Roman was just thinking along the same lines, but relief brought with it a slight euphoria. "Well, alls well that ends well! My quest brought us all together and now well can travel the world saving kingdoms and being heroes! It's going to be wonderful!"

"Well this wasn't convoluted or disorganised in the slightest" Janus drawled. If there had been a camera, he would have been looking directly into it.

~~*~~

**Author's Note:**

> I am honestly amazed you managed to read this far, thank you for sticking around through this. Honestly the idea was so much better in my head but thank you for reading!
> 
> P.S. sorry for projecting my disgust for liquorice and gingerbread onto Virgil


End file.
